Wishing Well
by Kindrea
Summary: A mysterious ring enters the mansion and causes unparalleled events to happen. Chapter three has finally arrived. Please Review.
1. Logan's Ring

Disclaimer: I live in a box, I admit that I own nothing, much less a profitable franchise like the X-men; more's the pity. As for suing me, yeah sure, you'll have to come up to my place of residence to hire a lawyer who knows which court has jurisdiction, then send someone to represent the company for a couple days, I'll defend myself as best as a grad law student can, I'll prolly lose, but then since I own nothing, I'll go bankrupt and no one will be the richer. So don't sue me.

Oh yeah right, Logan, Jean, Storm, Jubilee, Creed and company are Marvel's as far as I know.    
Also Faye is mine, all mine, and I plan on keeping her that way. My plan is to develop her slowly but surely into a very distinctive character.

And now for the continuity segment: well that's pretty easy, try to imagine a time when the story makes sense. I know there must be plenty, you can also think of the Fox cartoon show (not to be confused with the Evolution horror). Come on, I know you can do it :)

* * *

  
Knick knacks are so easily collected. Not that he had thought a lot about it, but once in awhile he would stumble upon it again when he needed to go through his drawer. At those times, he would remember the day he had found it.

* * *

He had needed a getaway from the mansion. The spring had finally arrived. (Not that it had been a rough winter by his standards, but the much awaited spring had taken its time in coming.) It had taken a high casualty toll this year too, the Canadian X-man thought. All his fellow X-men seemed to be in love. While pining away for what he could not have was not his style, neither could he stay there. Walking in on one of the numerous couples either made him want to gag, or depressed him. It was even worse when he interrupted Jean and Scott.

Jean, he thought, now she was a real lady, intelligent, strong, but generous. Pain intermingled with desire. He'd whimper inwardly with a kind of longing but he had forsaken the possibility that Jean might be his long ago. So he stalked instead, in the streets of a nearby town. He'd almost been looking for a fight to expel his foul mood.

Until he smelled something weird, not unpleasant, he thought as he wrinkled his nose and sniffed the air. Intriguing, it smelled like … something… what could it be? Something familiar and very homely. Something from his past. How could that be? he did not remember having any home. It smelled… of sunny days in a forest. Yes, that was it. Still, he thought, that was not a smell one would find in a little town of this countryside. Having nothing better to do, and finding his curiosity mightily aroused, he decided he might as well locate where the smell had come from.

Following his powerful nose and the wafting smell, he walked a few paces and found himself in a small park with a path of green grass around a small fountain. Funny that he had never really looked at it before. The sun reflecting on a coin at the bottom of the fountain caught his attention. A wish coin no doubt, but because idleness did not become him, he got closer and noticed it was no coin. He wondered what it was and bent over to take it. As he noticed it was no coin, but a ring, a niggling doubt came over him. What if someone had thrown it there for a purpose? A particular wish perhaps or maybe some strange ritual.

A more romantic soul could have thought up an imaginary lady weeping over the loss of her beloved and throwing the ring as a gesture of some sort. But the man known as Wolverine was nothing if not practical and such thoughts did not enter his mind.

He did take it then, because the ring looked strange. It looked to be made of a strange design, a very ancient one that was neither from here not there. It did not look western or asian. He did not know much about such baubles, but it did look odd. Logan did not fancy himself a jewellery aficionado but it looked expensive. Not with diamonds and gold, but with a pale white metallic material and a deep blue stone that felt warm to the touch, even though it had spent some time in the chilly water. He looked at the inside of the slim band, checking for an inscription. A name would be useful, but there were none. As he turned it in between his fingers, the sun seemed to reveal a faint, almost unreadable inscription: "Wishes come true".

Phaw! he spat in disgust, romantic drivel. He almost threw it back. Because romantic hogwash was not his style. But he held back, and rationalised his impulse to keep it by thinking the ring was obviously valuable and that he might as well have it rather than leaving it to gather rust. He did not dwell on the primal urge he felt to own the ring and suppressed a thought about how pretty it would look on Jean's finger. He shook all those thoughts and walked back home.

* * *

He had toyed with it occasionally. The ring had an odd habit of worming through his thoughts sometimes. At such times, he would keep reminding himself that wishes did not come true. He knew that very, very well. and the ring was nothing more than an object. An object with intricate patterns of filigree and expert craftsmanship he had learned from a jeweller. The little bald man had been unable to identify a style or the material or even the stone used. His conclusion was that the metal must be an uncommon alloy and the stone synthetic. Only the work had value even if it was a nice piece, probably the work of a talented and imaginative artist. He had been offered a respectable sum, but Logan decided against parting with the ring. It felt irreplaceable to him, no less so because the jeweller had not given him a logical reason to feel this way.

So he had put it back in his drawer, not knowing why, to be found once and again, like a forgotten surprise that was in turn strange and familiar. The other X-men, he knew, would have been surprised to hear about that stupid ring. He was surprised himself he had kept it so long and that, in fact, he was still holding on to it. Oh he had been tempted to show it to Hank. The beastly X-men was so knowledgeable about anything, he might give precious insight. What stopped him was that Hank might not understand, or even worse, that he would understand only too well. Besides he thought, once Beast got his paw on this, he'd never stop until he had cracked all its mysteries. Logan was not too sure he wanted the secrets exposed and explained. To think they all thought he was the rash one!

* * *

Once in awhile he thought he kept it just in case Jean ever got tired of Scott. Then he would do… he would do… well he did not know what, if anything, he would do, but he thought maybe he would give her the ring sometime. He thought it was pretty, but he'd probably have to ask Jubilee what she thought about it first. No matter how he felt about the ring, he was not going to give Jean a lame present

* * *

.   
On one such occasion, he had been in his room staring at the deep blue stone and thinking about Jean. And he surprised himself thinking about her, allowing himself to long for her, and wishing she could be his, when he realised what he had been doing to himself. Hoping for things that could not be and would never happen he thought with bitterness. He felt a chill along his spine and he thought the room looked brighter as if something had covered the light before and was just now removed.

And at that moment, the wafting odour he had smelled the day he had found the ring hit his delicate nose. It was still as impenetrable as it had been and yet, it was the most homelike smell he could remember. There was a knock on his door. Still a bit suspicious he asked: "what is it?" while the pervasively odd forest scent filled his room. When no answer came, he went to the door and opened it.

Before him stood a small young woman a bit taller but more slender than Jubilee. He was not very tall, but he did stood half a head taller than her. Fortunately for him she did not look at all like a waif. He hated waifs but always seemed to end up taking them on board. But before he could stare at her some more, she introduced herself.   
"Hello, I'm Faye." she said smiling at him.   
  
Logan was not about to let her see she had discountenanced him. So he drawled:   
  
"What are you doing here?"   
  
She giggled, not as a child would, but rather with a crystalline murmur.

"Well, you could say I am the owner of the ring you found, but it's not really in my possession now."She laughed again with a wide smile and sparky eyes. She seemed genuinely amused   
.   
"How did you get here?" Wolverine felt obliged to ask, not wanting to let her laugh endlessly. The rugged man felt like getting a straight answer now.

"Tell you what, you let me in, and I will tell you everything you want." She smiled pleasantly.   
  
Logan was a bit reluctant to let her in. He did not know her after all and she was mightily strange, this wisp of a woman. She had long hair that seemed spun of silver. Unlike Ororo's hers could have passed for a normal hair colour. Her nose was thin and straight, not something you would see on a pert covergirl. Somehow, everything about her seemed thin and elfin, save for her eyes which were of the exact same colour as the stone on the ring. This startled him and he stopped studying her strange features. Just for the colour of her eyes he was ready to believe she was telling the truth when she said the ring was hers.

Furthermore, he knew very well what people smelled like when they were nervous, like when they tried to lie to him, or they were up to some trick and there was none of that about her. She rather looked as though she had more to fear from him than the other way around. So after a short moment of hesitation, he let her in.   
  
"So" he asked, his wit coming back to him "how could you possibly know the ring was here?"   
  
She looked at him, letting him look at her blue eyes.

"Well, the jewel and I, there is a link between us. Wherever it goes, I know where it is."

The subdued tone in which she said that, he thought, only a mutant would explain things like that. He knew how understatement became an habit to those imperilled by a particular biochemistry others shunned. Still, he thought, a beta-class mutant, otherwise we would already know about her, and the Professor would have her. Tracing back a ring was at best a simple parlour trick and no great accomplishment.   
  
"Did you get a good look at the ring, Logan?" she asked, and he jumped at the use of his name.

"Ah, come now, I have to know you… from the ring…" she pointed to the small object he still held between his fingers. She smiled knowingly but perhaps with a strange shyness.

"Beside, how else would have they let me in, if I'd had no business here? I told them I was a friend of yours." He had meant to question her about that… But something made him wonder how that could be. Before he could articulate a question in his mind, she talked again and he was fascinated.

"Yes, I think you did see what was on the band." She smiled slightly as anyone might to a dying man. Before she could muddle his brain with her prattling, he quickly told her, hoping to discourage her of whatever she had planned.

"I don't believe in wishes, kid."

She did not stop smiling, but her face was definitely taking a sad expression.

"Be that as it may, I am bound to grant your fondest wish."

Something in him snapped, and his temper rose even though she had done nothing to provoke him but dare pull a prank on him. He replied with a sneer as was his habit.

"What! you think you're some kinda fairy?"

She simply laughed, with the sound a babbling brook would make if the water carried silver bells, the sadness in her face gone for now. When she moved her head, he thought he saw her hair uncover her ear. A definitely pointed ear. His sight was playing tricks on him, or she was playing it to the hilt. He shook his head as much to mentally reject what he had been thinking of as to clear his thoughts. Maybe she had stronger mental powers than he'd thought at first, but she simply could not be an imaginary creature. He did not even know why he had even entertained the notion.

She gave him a dazzling smile as if he had just told her he had come up with the cure for cancer.

"I am glad you think so. Most people are intimidated with my size and let my appearance lead their imagination on a merry chase." Her smile increased after saying this. "Well" said Faye, "I'd love to stay and meet your friends, but they might misunderstand." She winked at him, then sobered, "your wish will come true" and she headed to the door.

He grabbed her by the arm and she bolted. "I made no wish, and I'm not gonna"

Faye turned her deep eyes up at him, meeting his own dark gaze. "It's already done." She made as of leave, only she was not held back by his grab on her arm. He did not see what she did, but she was already to the door and his hand was still curled around the air where her arm had been. When he looked back at the door, a millisecond later, no one was there. He grumbled something under his breath and went downstairs to sweat this whole nonsensical hallucination out of his body.

* * *

Heading down, he encountered Bishop and asked him if he had let someone of Faye's description in.

"Oh yes, that girl. She said she knew you, and you were expecting her." And the burly X-men made no more of it, leaving Wolverine in bewildered shock. That he had proof she had truly been in the mansion was a shock, but such an uncharacteristic behaviour coming from Bishop… That was beyond strange, there were unknown forces at work in this. He wondered what her purpose might have been in coming and how she had managed to convince Bishop without a gold plated invitation. To think of it, how she had managed it all, without offsetting the Professor's sophisticated machines.

It had to be telepathic powers, but he had thought she was rather on the weak side. He could have assumed wrong. He should tell the others about it, yet he stopped himself. This was far too personal. Even if he did what would they do? Same as they would any other mutant, greetings first and ward later. She had come after him and he would deal with her on his own.

* * *

Unbeknownst to Wolverine, Faye was still around the mansion but she was hiding. In as few words as can be expressed, she was thinking how to plan what she must do. There were many ways to go about it, but she was also sworn to interfere as little as possible. And so, such a question could bear a little reflection. She needed time to make everything happen. Always time was of the essence for mortals. After all the one named Logan had to know she was behind it. She could not let him forget about her. Else he would be lost in a world of his own devising. Everything must be perfect for tomorrow morning.

* * *

Logan woke up suddenly. He was no longer in his bed at the mansion. He understood what woke him up with a start. It was Jean's voice.   
"Logan, honey, wake up. Your breakfast is ready!"

That was odd, about as odd as waking up in a room he did not even remember entering, ever. The sheets of the bed even had flowers on them. He felt positive those sheets were not of his choosing.

A delicious aroma wafted to his nostrils. This he definitely knew what had produced it. He followed his nose to a small yet cosy kitchen. There Jean stood and served him a plate with the full breakfast trimmings. She looked at him with her concerned look.

"Did you sleep well? You look rumpled" She reached at his head and tucked a cowlick.

He thought about the house he did not recognise and the fact that apparently Jean and him were the only occupants. Having lost a big chunk of his past before, thinking about the situation alarmed him. He was too dumbfounded to think thoroughly, much less demand explanations he might not be ready to hear. Nor did he want to ruin this moment with Jeannie. He looked out the window and saw melting snow banks. It was spring, so at least that was consistent with his last memories, but snow this high was not a Winchester, New York landscape. Unless he missed his guess, they were in Canada.

"Honey" Jean said with a smile, "You'd better eat, it's going to get cold." She pointed at his plate.

He sat down then, "Thanks Jean".

"Aw, I love cooking for you every morning." She told him with love apparent in her eyes. Then she smiled ruefully. "I never thought I'd enjoy it so much. It was not the same back at the mansion." Then her smile faded as she seemed to realise she had said something she had not meant to. "Don't worry Logan, everything is fine now." She pasted another cheery smile on her face and went on as if nothing was the matter.

Oddly though, he noticed she did everything painstakingly and by hand too, whereas the Jean he knew loved to exercise her telekinetic muscle. Maybe she did not feel like she needed it so much anymore, but that would be strange in itself.

He also wondered what he was to do that day. From Jean's words, they were living together and had been for at least a while. Else she would not have mentioned cooking for him every morning. That in turn ruled out a possibility that they were on short leave from the X-men. But he could not just ask her about it. She would find it odd. He knew that with her telepathic powers it was only a short while before she picked up on his confusion. He would only hope things would right themselves on their own. Still, he needed to know what he had to do today. So he asked Jean:

"Did you have any plans today?"

Jean seemed startled by the question, but answered with a famished look in her eyes. "Well, it's Saturday, so I thought you would stay in with me today."

He did wonder why she spoke as if she expected to be denied. Did she not know that he would lie down his life for her like Raleigh's coat to spare the Queen's feet the indignity of brushing dirt. He shoved the thought aside though, he was happy that she wanted him, and not someone else. This was everything he had ever wanted. If things were awkward at first, he would still make up for it, for he did not dare burst this bubble. He had waited too long. So he took his plate to the dishwasher and did not ask Jean about the X-men.

They were cuddling in the living room. Her warmth, her touch, her scent. She was is. He held her and he felt truly happy, even more so as this Jean seemed to lean on him, to need his protection. There was nothing to really warrant this. He knew her for the strong woman she was, but it felt good to be needed and that she would finally let him care for her.

Logan never was a man of many words, but sometimes the ones he let out caused him grief. He let his guard down, let his shields down, and he mused wonderingly: "I never saw this side of you when you were with Scott."

She stiffened in his arms and silently pulled back.

"Jean," he said, "I'm sorry…"

"It's alright, Logan" she shrugged it away in a weak voice.

But he knew she was shaken up. He did not need telepathic abilities for that. He could even smell it about her. The moment was definitely spoiled.

Jean went to a room upstairs and he did not dare follow. She was upset and he sensed his presence made it worse. And he certainly did not know how to heal her psyche. It killed him not to be able to help it. He paced the living room and he thought about the trail of events. He had awakened this morning with less than impeccable memories, Jean was romantically involved with him, they were shackled up in Canada, something had happened with Scott, and possibly they had left the X-men for good. That was a helluva lot he had managed to forget this time.

Briefly and faintly, a memory flashed across his mind of a small woman with platinum hair, but he chased it out of his mind. He had bigger fish to fry.

He climbed up the stairs quickly, and got dressed to go outside, then pushed the door to the room in which Jean had hidden. She was sobbing softly. He was surprised to realise how acutely her pain could hurt him and swore he would heal it. He looked at her hoping she could feel the promise in his eyes. He told her,

"I'm going to fix this, I'll find out what's wrong and fix it for you, and you'll never cry again. I promise."

She simply gasped in between two sobs and said "Oh Logan, I tried, but there's nothing more to be done. The X-men are gone for good." And she weeped even harder. The man known as Wolverine came closer and tried to comfort her but she pushed him away, grief stricken and unwilling to share her pain further.

Logan was acquainted to the kind of bone-deep grief he could see in Jean. And he knew he could not do more for now, but respect her wish for solitude. He left as quickly as he had come, got out of the house and started his jeep. He did not know where he was but he could just bet at the end of the road there would be a town and in the town there would be a way. A way to find out what went wrong and what ailed Jean. A library perhaps, not that such places where familiar to him but he would be able to find out.

* * *

Before he found a library, he saw a phone booth and he thought sometimes the less sophisticated the trick, the better. So he stopped and got out of the jeep. He walked to the phone booth. Inside, he did not have to even hesitate a second, the mansion's number was as fresh in his memory as if he had lived there yesterday. He dialed... The phone rang.... once,... twice,... thrice,... Someone must be there to answer, he thought.

Then there was answer, "Hello" was said in Ororo Monroe's elegant voice. This reassured Logan, the X-men still existed, the phone was answered, and Ororo was there. He only had to ask her what was wrong with Jean.

"Hi ro'" he drawled.

"Logan?" gasped the otherwise serene woman in surprise. "Is this you?"

"Yah, what's up with the X-men Ororo?" he asked.

"But Logan, you know as well as the rest of us, the X-men are no longer." there was a touch of hurt in her voice. "When you and Jean left, the rest of us disbanded, I was not able to be enough of a leader to prevent it. And after Scott... I'm sorry Logan, but I don't want to talk about it. After all that went on last year, I hope you two can be happy together at least." She said that with a bitter voice and hung up.

He had never seen Ororo speak so abruptly, much less hang up on someone. She used to be good friends with him. To try to be there for him even though he never wanted anyone to do that for him. He could not imagine what could have changed that. The new turn of events only made him more determined to find out what was wrong with everyone and himself.

* * *

Rightly so, in the center of, er, yes... Lachlinstown there was a library that had an impressive set of newspaper archives on microfilm for a medium town. After a while, Logan got the impression he would need some help from one of the ladies and so he made an effort to be pleasant. He always knew how to do that when the game was worth the candle. Sometimes, he did wonder how the Cajun managed to be this way all the time. The lady appeared flustered, but showed him how to manage the microfilm reader and how to sort through the index.

At that point, he had to wonder where to start looking, as it was, he had no clue what had happened, but he also did not know when. He got to regret his claws could handle situations such as these, but he was certain they would not be of any help. Logan tried to recall when his last memories where, and the question as to how long it has been since, came to his mind. He grabbed the day's newspaper from the nearby table. A year and a half...

He winced, a whole year and a half to be missing memories. He hated that! He controlled his temper just in time to avoid crumbling the newspaper into a ball and forced himself to leave it unscathed on the table where he had found it. He went back to the microfilm machine and the index. He was not too sure what he had to look for, so he ended up checking pretty much every article mentionning the word mutant. And there were many.

After a while, healing factor or not, his head hurt and his sight was almost too blurred to read anything in print. He had not turned up anything worth while. His finger slipped on the backward button and he stopped himself as a reflex. There was a seemingly unrelated article on that page, and he would not have read it if he was not pitching himself in a last hope effort. What he read, about civil unrest, seemed to have only a relative importance, to him or the average reader. At about 20 lines though, what he read chilled his blood.

An unknown teenager with the observed mutant   
power to emit pyrotechnics met an untimely   
death at the hands of the Friends of Humanity.

Jubilee! Jubilee was dead? Library or not, he let out a feral growl, and punched the machine's screen with his unsheathed claws. The other readers and library staff started yelling and fleeing the building. When he finally succeeded in controlling his anger he knew it was time to scram. The police or something had to be on its way, and he had questions to ask.

* * *

He drove back in a haze, and hastened to the small house. He opened the door fully expecting he would have to get Jean out of her room, but he could already see her in the lounge, sitting on the sofa.

"Jean, you have to tell me about Jubilee." he told her, as gently as he could in the state he was, which was not too gentle.

Apparently Jean did not expect such a brutal question, because she blanched even more, and looked away guiltily. He however, was not in a mood for too many niceties. He grabbed her shoulders, and forced her to look at him.

"Tell me! I have to know! What the **hell** happened to JUBILEE?"

Tears were flowing down her cheeks freely. "You know Logan, you KNOW what happened. Why do you want me to say it again?" She was shaking under his grip. He was past caring, all these years of living with impaired memories coupled with his anger over the news of his protegée's death left no mercy in him, not even for the woman he had loved alll his life.

"**JEAN, I'M NOT KIDDING, TELL ME!**" he roared the last words more than he spoke them.

Her eyes rounded as if she had never seen him angry at her like that, she swallowed a sob or two and started in a drone voice:

"It was on an impromptu mission, the FOH had been active of late and we had been trying to pick up after them. Stopping riots from forming and saving poor mutants from their schemes, at the time, they had been trying to get their hands on an alpha class mutant. No one knew why, but we knew we had to stop it. It was our job to look out for others" She gulped, and sighed.

"That day, we went out on a call, you, me, Jubilee and Iceman. I dont remember why, but you were mightily peeved at Jubilee that day, so when we did split, you went with Bobby and I went with Jubilee, we had communicated telepathically and you had told me to go with her." Jean's hand was trembling. "It turned out, they were waiting for us."

"Logan, you said you'd forgiven me" Jean was looking at him beseechingly, imploring him not to force her to continue.

But he did not react, could not let go of the need to know, until he thought of Jean's apparent change of personality and of his promise to her. He opened his mouth but... Jean went on with the story.

"They had hidden numbers, so many, I could not think of all of them, I could not hold them back, and my shields were too weak. Jubilee was the one holding them back and protecting me, just as you would have. But even with the full extent of her power she could not hold long. They overwhelmed her and they must have thought she would make a better prize. That gave me just the opportunity to fight a path out of the crowd and pull myself to relative safety. I was so scared, and Jubilee was scared too, I felt her jumbled thoughts in here" She tapped her forehead slightly. I knew even if I could, going back would not help me, or her, in any way, but I thought, if I called you and Bobby, we could take her back."

He interrupted her. "If they wanted her alive, how did she die?"

She looked at him with suprise and shame in her eyes. She slumped back in the sofa and he knew, she was going to tell him something he had never heard before, screwed memories or not. "Logan, I could have called you, and Bobby, but there was a chance we would have never made it, I could live with the sacrifice of my own life, I could even live with the sacrifice of Bobby's life, most of all I could live with the sacrifice of Jubilee's life though at times I felt like she was a beloved little sister. The one thing I could not live with, the thing I feared more was the sacrifice of your life. **I could not take the chance!**"

He looked at her as if something he had classified as harmless fluff suddenly turned into a crested viper. As if he had never known her. He shook her. "You mean you let them kill the kid because you would not let me take my own chances?" He was hurt and bewildered and more than a little angry.

She caved in against the sofa. Then her body slumped in defeat and she spoke with a tiny voice. "That's not what I did, I linked with her telepathically, scared as I was, and I saw what they were going to do, I saw it through her eyes and..." She was sobbing again. "Logan, there was nothing else to do... Jubilee herself... if she could have... I used my powers to give her the best death possible. And Logan, when she died, I was with her. You understand why I could not stay with the X-men. Cyclops knew what happened, and that is why he commited suicide, that and knowing I loved you. That is what broke us all up. All the X-men"

He wanted to comfort her, but he also wanted to hit her. She had made a bad mistake, one she would never forgive herself. A mistake so huge that it had been the end of a great man's dream, the end of his solace and so many others'. The end of her life as she had known it. Yet she had made that mistake partly on a selfish sentiment. However, even her selfishness was rooted in concern for him, because of her love for him. 

Her love for him... It had seemed like the most unattainable dream he had ever made. But it had come true. How had it come true? A distant flash of memory lit his thought process for a milisecond. A sad knowing smile on a girl the age of Jubilee.

He saw Jean from the corner of his eye, she was removing something from her finger. She grabbed his hand and pressed something hard in it. She said in a strangled voice.

"Logan, I will understand..., if you dont forgive me...If you don't want to stay married with me. I... I don't forgive myself"

Logan closed his eyes, and knew she had put her wedding ring in his hand. Could he forgive her, could he not forgive her? He used to know what was right and what was wrong, but he did not know about a situation like this. He was no choirboy himself. He had made mistakes, but he had not killed a part of her family. Could he bear to see her everyday and remember? He gulped and opened his eyes and his hand.

The ring was there with a familiar blue jewel, like.... like the young girl's eyes. An inscription seemed to flash for a second. Wishes come true. Did they ever! It had been his fondest wish that Jean leave Scott for him. It had turned so wrong, as if his love had perverted everything good about her. In a way he was responsible. He remembered voicing his wish while holding the ring.

"Nooooooooooooooooo!" he howled, the young girl had told him she would grant his fondest wish. He remembered Faye. He would make her pay, whatever her power. He raised his fist and screamed:

"Faye, come back you little twerp, undo the damage you've done" but nothing happened. He kept on howling and pounding on the walls and screaming till he was almost spent. Jean had scurried back to her room it seemed.

Finally he fell to his knees in despair. How could he have traded his surrogate daughter for the woman he loved. He looked at the ring, peering deep within its blue stone. How he wished things were back to normal.

He pondered this for a while, then a waft of a once strange smell travelled to his nose. He knew who it was now, and he raised his head and he saw Faye, standing in front of him, come without much ado which made her appearance even more mysterious. She looked down at him, and this time she was serious, there was no trace of even the hint of a smile. He could not help himself, he jumped on her and unsheathed his claws and held them across her throat. She did not look troubled in the least.

"What did you do to me? to us?" he snarled angrily, even more furious because he seemed not to be able to scare her.

"I have given you a gift Logan, a precious gift, I made your fondest dream come true."

"A dream? You took the purest feelings I had in me and twisted them into a nightmare!" He swiped at her throat perfectly willing to end her existence here and there, not thinking further than his anger and grief. He did not notice her throat did not seem to be injured as a result of his attack.

"I did no such thing, I have allowed you to see what might become if things were different, what consequences might come of your actions. But this world, it is of your doing. It is the world in which a Jean Grey would love you and a world in which the man who is you would love her. That you do not like the type of persons it would take for such a condition to come true, is no fault of mine."

She went on, "The Jean who would not love Scott Summers is a different person than the one you know, the Jean who would reject Scott Summers **and** love you is yet another different person. This is what she would be like. Believe me, she is not more happy than you are, though she has tried very hard to make amends towards all parties concerned."

Faye showed Logan in smoky illusions on the wall pieces of his past in this world with Jean. He smiled at times, and cringed at others.

"There have been good times, Logan, I assure you." If you choose to remain here, you can become that man who loves Jean and that Jean loves back. The man who forgave her because of their love and who does his level best to help her live through her memories. You will remember everything, though not as acutely as you would had you lived these moments yourself. This is your wish, and if you wish it, I will serve you."

"How can I do that, she is miserable... more miserable than I've ever known her to be. If Scott was to die on a mission, she would not take it so hard, it is herself she killed when the kid died. Never to see Jubilee again, to have paid her life as the price for my happiness. That is impossible. I... I love the kid."

Faye gave him a half-smile, "That is fair. I will bring you back, nothing will have changed since last you went to bed." She started waving her hand, but he interrupted her.

"Wait! I want to know who you are, and what your powers are."

She smiled now, "But Logan, I have told you what I was, I told you I was fay." She was grinning most impishly. "Don't worry, I'm not nearly as mischievious as my cousin Puck. Since he impressed that Shakespeare fellow everyone thinks we're all alike."

"What, be serious, you mean this is all magic?" He was so surprised with her he lifted his body from her slight form and let her get up, which she seemed to do without the use of earthly movement.

"Only the best kind. You better be ready because here we go" As she completed her gesture, they found themselves back in his room.

"Well there we are. Logan I would ask a favour out of you."

"Why should I do you any favour, you ruined my dearest hope." he snarled the words back at her.

"You big lummox, why do you think I even granted your wish? It was not because I was out of things to do and I saw you and knew I had to work on you! No, you picked up the ring." At those words she seemed a bit sad. "But you can imagine what would happen if the ring fell in wrong hands. Imagine what this blue buffoon Apocalypse could wish for? "

"Your own wish, as bad as the consequences might have seemed to you, was very harmless in the end. So you see it would be in everyone's best interest if you kept the ring at least until such a time as when you find the right person to pass it along" She had sobered up quickly. "Please say you will keep the ring."

Logan wanted to keep a grudge and to tell her no, just to spite her. He wanted to hate her and to get back at her for what she had shown him, and to be sure, he was and would remain angry with the diminutive fay. Nonetheless, what she said, what she asked, made only too much sense for him to refuse. There was no way, as he had noticed earlier, that he could act on her physical presence, so that ruled out imprisoning her. He could not prevent her from the use of her powers, so it seemed the only reasonable alternative was to do what she asked. If his was a harmless wish, he did not dare think of what this... this.. fairy could do.

"Alright, I will keep it" he mumbled in a low tone, "but you will regret it"

She simply sighed, "Logan, I already do." and vanished as plainly as had been the rest of her magical works.   


-=+=+=>>The End of Chapter 1=+=+=-   
  


  
  


  
  



	2. Scott's Spirit

#  -=+=+=>> Wishing Well=+=+=-

Chapter 2: Scott's Spirit

* * *

Disclaimer: No, I don't own them, more's the pity, (but if Stan Lee ever finds out about me, tell him I could use a good job, or that I'm up for adoption, I don't eat much anymore, I can be really quiet, my growing up is all done, and I'm almost through grad school.) That being said, "Faye" is mine.

This is probably not enough to warrant a rating, but I want to warn everyone there will be Twinkie torture in this episode. I beg the faint of heart and the easily disturbed to consider this before reading any further. Not to worry though, I own the twinkie used in this story, so you can't sue me for that at least.

* * *

A few weeks had passed from his nightmare at the hands of the fairy. Logan's mood had not improved one bit, and even he knew that he had been impossible to live with. It was high time he went on one of his walkabouts. But while he would never look at the ring the same way, he did not know what to do with it. He did **not** want to take it with him. He suspected the little twerp could keep extensive tabs on the ring and its wearer. And he definitely did not want her to interfere more in his existence.   
  
So while he was restless to get away from the mansion and the nightmare that had come too close, he had been wondering what to do with the ring. As the fay had said, he could not just leave the ring anywhere, not knowing what it could do, and if he did not want to take it along, that meant he would have to leave it in someone's care.   
  
Still, he did not wish the small menace on anyone he trusted enough to let them hold the ring. There was no more telling what she would do to them than there had been of what she had done to him. So he had sticked around. He could tell everyone's nerves were on edge.   
  
Just yesterday Logan had snapped at Jubilee when she asked him if he felt like going on a ride. If he did not find a way to get himself out of the county, he would end up alienating the only family he had.

* * *

Scott never was a telepath, but he felt positive everyone could see the dark angry cloud hovering over Wolverine wherever he would go. The crabby X-man had been ready to burst for a few weeks. Scott wondered what could have ignited Logan's volatile mood. Bah! he thought, as he saw a twinkie succumb to the man's extended claws. The sky is blue, and the grass is green. and the hairy X-man would throw unwarranted fits of temper.

"Logan, whatever this twinkie did to you, it's dead now, you can let go" The leader said to the irate man.

Logan just snarled and threw a not so witty comment on Scott's intimate parts. The he left with the twinkie mess on his claw. Scott Summers thought he just had to store that mental image for later, and snickered. Why the others thought he had no sense of humour, he had no idea. He just was not ready to laugh about serious things.

And to him nothing was more serious than his responsibilities. He had started out in life taking responsibility for himself at an early age. Reliability and responsibility, to him, was the greatest sign of care he could show another person. Responsibility for his loved ones, that was tantamount in his life. If that meant he had to be the party pooper, well that was his job. It all mattered too much to him.

* * *

Logan was fuming. He fully expected that anyone could see the smoke signs puffing out of his ears. This time he had trully made a fool of himself. He glanced down at his extended claws messed with twinkie. How embarassing. And for Cyke to witness it, that was not good.

Anyone would have laughed, but not Scott Summers, no... he was so stiff with that stick up his precious, that he had taken the matter seriously, as if this incident was a threat to the safety of **his team**. The man was a saint. The man probably never commited one sin of his whole life. He would not be upset or crabby, he was a rock of reliability. Sometimes the man known as Logan hated him for it, but most of the time, he relied on him being his stable self. He could admit it to himself.

As the angry X-man accepted this truth for himself, a revelation came upon him. Scott could be the one, he would keep the ring, and it would be safer than with anyone else. The leader of the X-men was the starkest man on the face of the planet it seemed. He always made the right choice, was morally upstanding, put the welfare of everyone else above his own whenever there was a chance. He could be trusted.

Yes, Scott Summers, fearless leader of the X-men was trustworthy. And if Logan gave him an explanation, he would doubtless do what his teammate asked. Now the problem had shifted on the explaining part. No way was he going to tell _anyone_ what had happened to him, it was too intimate. To tell Cyke, that would be impossible, he would sooner confide in Sabertooth. At least he knew Sabertooth was not perfect.

And he could not just give the one eyed wonder the ring to keep. Scott would be curious, Jean would hear about it, and he was certainly not up to seing the deviled ring and Jean at the same time. Of course, Jean was also too sensitive for his own good. She would get incohesive reactions from him. No, that would not do.

To tell anyone he saw fairies was also out of the question. After ruminating the episode, his skepticism was higher than it had been at the time when confronted to the events themselves. Fairies, magic and wishes, that was all very good in folklore, but it was not as undeniable as the Sh'iar in their space ships. In fact, he had come to the conclusion that nothing proved the existence of 'Faye' as something other than an illusionist.   
Jen   
Still, he could not shake off the embarassment he felt about the shattering ordeal of facing his own heart's content. Maybe it was not real, then there was nothing to worry about, the ring could be thrown to the trash without any qualm. Still, _Faye_ had been in front of him, he had thrown her on the floor. He had smelled her. She did have a connection with the ring, and it would not be surprising that she had come because of it. Somehow the ring gave power to the little creature.

His dilemma was as acute now as it had been these last weeks since he had awoke in his bed after the night it happened.

* * *

Jean and Scott were savouring one of too few moments of intimacy. But sooner of later, the conversation inevitably turned back to their teammates. Jean was a bit upset at the disruptive way that Logan had behaved in the last weeks or so. She told Scott about this, even though there was no doubt that Scott, as well as the rest of the X-men, had noticed. Scott smirked.

"He's been worse than usual, I caught him clawing the bejesus out of a twinkie today." He could not suppress a slight smile as he related the incident. Jean laughed softly as he told her how Logan had walked away with the mess on his claw rather than bear someone's gaze as he washed.

"I _wish_ he was not so temperamental though." Scott added with a sigh.

"And I wish, Mr. Summer, that you would think of something else besides an other man!" Jean giggled coyly.

"Well, Miss. Grey, I think you can fix that!" said Mr. Summer just before he kissed his love.

* * *

It was only later that the solution occured to Logan. He did not have to tell Cyke about the ring at all, for him to have it with him would be enough. He simply had to find a place the younger man would not let anyone suspect get close to and hide it there. Devious planning was a new thing for him, but he rose to whatever came his way.

It took him a quite long period of deliberation to find the best place to hide the ring both from untrusty characters, and loved ones. Not to mention slimboy himself. It had to be a place where Jean would not find it, and a place where no X-men would survey. And it had to be hidden too. Then, it hit him.

Scott's room was a spartan shrine of orderliness, but he had a big framed portrait picture of Jean on his wall. Even if Jean went into Scott's room, she would not be looking or fidgeting with her own portrait, so she would keep away from the ring. That was perfect, he could tape the ring to the back of the frame and no one would be the wiser.

Logan had thought of everything. So during the afternoon, when he noticed Jean and Scott were outside no doubt for a romantic interlude and that it seemed everyone was enjoying the seasonably warm weather, he slipped into Scott's room and quickly hid the ring. There.

He got out as quickly as he got in and no one was the wiser. He sincerely hoped _Faye_ would not show up. But if she did, maybe it would make Scott a little more humble, and Logan would not be too displeased with that. Now he was ready to pack his toothbrush and get going.

* * *

  
  
Scott had left Jean in Hank's lab for the result of some test he had been running. That was when he had met Jubilee on his way back. She had told him that Logan had, as they had been expecting for some time now, departed from the premisces of the mansion. Where had she said he would be going again? He could not remember. It was not really important, Heaven knew Wolverine would come back when he was good and ready. In the meantime, maybe it was best that the choleric man was on his own.

He climbed the stairs to the bedrooms and entered his own. He had to get dressed for his workout in the dangeroom. That almost chased the thought of Logan's departure from his mind. Almost. He opened the door and got in. Changed his clothes. Grumbled mentally. He did _wish_ Logan would not leave like that. He then tied his laces, (an X-man could not wear nifty boots all the time), and hurried on to his session.

* * *

  
  
In the meantime, the blue-eyed fay was shaking her head. She had warned him not to leave the ring. And now he was gone, and the other, hmm Scott, had wished for the troublemaker to be more disciplined. Really, she could see he had a point, but she did not feel like having to be the one to fix that. Feeling like it or not, there was no choice. She had to dispose of his wish and remember her geis. She did not have to think about it as much as she had about the wretched mortal's desire to hold his rival's girlfriend's affection.

They called her people the fair folk, but she did not have to be fair.

* * *

Scott wiped the sweat off his visor after his intensive danger room session. He then put on his red sunglasses. He hurried to the shower and enjoyed the brutal cold of the water sluicing on his worked body. A good period always managed to help with the daily aggravations he felt at the hands of his less scrupulous teammates. He was ready to be good old Scott again.

When he got out, he headed straight to the kitchen for a well deserved snack, because the work out had made him positively ravenous. He crossed the entrance hall on his way, and was very surprised to notice the arrival of someone he had **not** expected to see so soon. Logan was back.

"Did you forget something before your next tour, Logan?" asked the leader. Logan looked at him without the hostile glare he was so famous for. That was even more unexpected. And he did not snarl back an insult. Logan must be sick, the one eyed X-man thought. "Well?" he prodded, wanting to know more about the situation.

"I was on my way, but I had a change of heart, I had the impression it would be best if I stayed."

Scott was nearly flabbergasted, and it took him time to take this in. Logan had climbed the stairs by the time he started breathing again. Long sentence for the canadian man, not to mention a grammatically correct one. And since when the oldest X-man changed his mind? That had to be a first, because Logan was stubborn enough to give mountains a run for their money.

Ah, he thought, maybe there was hope after all.

* * *

  
  
The game, she thought, would be to juggle between her geis and her duty. She had done relatively well this afternoon. But she had to be prepared. Also she now had to take another thing in consideration. She had to think of how the perpetually angry mutant acts with the people he called his friends. She had to balance their leader's wish and not incite them on a witchhunt. So that meant not interfering with Logan's personality more than was needed.   
  
Those blasted X-men and the blasted ring could really make a fay's life miserable.

* * *

Scott had knocked on Logan's door to ask him to come to an extra danger room session with him. As usual, the cranky canadian had told him he could go see if hell really existed. That had almost reassured the goggled leader as much as it had annoyed him. Lately he could barely stand the attitude. He had put up with it for many years, but it was getting so obnoxious. He pondered just how much he could take and went to his room, slammed the door in anger and mused, aloud, that he _wished_ Logan's attitude would change into a more cooperative stance.

He had not stood there for five minutes that he heard a knock on his own door and a grumbly wording of his name. His name for pete's sake, and not some ridicule nickname. He was about to fall on his _derrière_ but he opened the door instead to really make sure it was Logan. And it was.

"I reconsidered. Wanna go for a work out, Scott?" Not only Logan was calling him Scott, and displaying a minimum of aggressive behaviour, but he was dressed in sweats pants and a long t-shirt. Just as he would have instructed the older man to be dressed if he would have thought Wolverine would listen. Simply Amazing!

"Huh, sure Logan. Let's go." Scott Summers was certain to enjoy the occasion, it would most likely not last long.

They walked down to the danger room, as friends would. That is friends who dont resent the heck out of the other. Normal friends. It was starting to go to Cyclops head, who was simply determined to make the best of this, before it deteriorated.   


* * *

Hank McCoy, also known as the Beast, was monitoring Cyclops and Wolverine's session, it was amazing enough to see these two spend more time together than was absolutely necessary, but it was true enough that Wolverine had been acting strange lately. He had noticed a definitely that the scraggly man had been not been behaving as usual towards Jean and Scott. He had been belligerant towards everyone but less so to Scott, and he had avoided Jean. One had to wonder what happened to bring about this change of attitude.

And now, they were both training, in a civilised fashion, together. Logan had never been much of a teamplayer, unless the circumstances really required it of him. Even then he would have a tendency to rush ahead, to do what he perceived as the foremost necessity and let his teammates handle the rest. That was teamwork to the canadian X-man. But today, yes, today was different, it seemed.

He let Cyclops call the shots and cover him. In fact he seemed to wait for the leader to give him his cue. Scott barely had to communicate with him. Logan even ducked sometimes and let Cyclops aim. That was odd. That and seeing how quick the short man was. He had never relied on pure speed to run circles around his opponents rather than engage them directly.

Finally Cyclops called an end to the session. Their leader seemed to have had a run for his money, he had done a much more thorough workout than he had expected to when entering the danger room with Logan. But Logan, who had run, ducked, jumped, did not seem to have broke a sweat or to even be short of breath, like you would have expected.

Without a retort, Logan followed and the two men went to shower. Hank scratched his head. The times, they were a-changing.

* * *

Scott Summers was perplexed. He had never gotten along with Logan. Not until the rugged canadian came back hours from exhibiting the worst bout of moody temper. It simply made no sense. Logan would usually take weeks to run the course of his foul mood. Yet this time, he came back without even really leaving, and was more disciplined than he ever had been. It did not even come close.

He was not sure he wanted it to end.

* * *

  
But the small enchantress very much wanted it to come to its end. She rubbed her temples and shook her pointy ears. Those spells were difficult for her to maintain. Puck managed these much better than her. Not to mention that it was hard to fulfill the X-man's wishes. They were so simple, she had barely any room to wiggle out of them. And of course, there was something annoying in having to make true the things he had wished. She did not like the Logan person more than she had to, but it repulsed her to do this to. One had to wonder if the so-called leader of the X-men ever thought of anything or anyone else than the grumpy man.

It was just her luck that Logan had hidden the ring in Scott's room. The fay creature thought that he was no better than that Stalin fellow who liked to dish out orders and reign supreme. Well, maybe not, but he was at least as imperative as Oberon. She sincerely hoped she was not magicking too loudly. Fay thoughts also were magic, and other fay could perceive magic. Lord Oberon was certainly the most powerful of the Tuathan. He would not appreciate the comparison.

She had to find a way to end this ordeal as quick as possibly. The sooner she did, the sooner she stopped feeling the full burden of her geis. Besides, the last thing she wanted was to make everyone suspicious.

* * *

In the garage, Scott pondered the latest events. He had tried to stop thinking about the strange behaviour of his turbulent teammate, but he just could not. Something was wrong here. The danger room session had been all wrong. Logan was acting odd. About as odd as Logan refraining from stabbing anyone directly. He did not behave like himself, but he had not in a while. What really was strange was that for as long as he had known him, he had always seen Logan use his claws to either slice or stab. He seemed to have developped a new respect for life as he did not even have his claws extended most of the time, and when he did, he just slashed at his enemies to virtually claw at them, simply to keep them away. Very much like a feline might. Not that it was not effective, but this was not part of Logan's fihting style.

As much as he wished it was true he had to contemplate that something was the matter with Logan. It would not be the first time strange things happened. And he had the strongest impression now that something was not right, he had to act on it right now.

He hurried inside and fetched Hank. Scott explained his doubts to the furry scientist.

"I don't know just what might be wrong, Hank. But you have to admit that it must have taken a personality transplant for him to be even remotely as nice to me as he was today."   
  
"I thought I noticed a dissemblance too, during your danger room session. But I dismissed any such hypothesis promptly. Logan is very impredictable." The ponderate X-man replied. "Cerebro has not picked up any sign of abnormal mutant activity either. Therefore we must be prudent, lest we aggravate whatever has been annoying him."

Scott could see Hank's point and he would see the point of being prudent if he did not think there was a more imminent danger than Logan being peeved. Without Hank's support, he would simply have to trap the wolverine alone.

* * *

Back to his room, Scott slumped his body on the bed. What a brutal workout. He would feel it tomorrow. He had never thought that the fighting would be more efficient if he let Wolverine act on his own rather than take directions from him. However he would have the sore muscles to prove it.

This again brought the strangeness of late events to his mind. He stared at the ceiling. It was hard to come up with a good plan when you had no idea what you were facing or if you were facing anything at all. He did not know what to do. How he _wished_...

* * *

Oh no. He has done it again, she thought. He has found another way to wish something I do not want to do. She felt the magical compulsion focus her beign onto the ring. 

* * *

How he _wished_... that whatever was happening revealed itself to him. Scott said those words aloud wistfully. He was puzzled to see something coalesce out of thin air in the middle of his room. And he was doubly surprised to see it was Logan who did so.   
  
"What? Logan, is that you? what are you doing?" Scott said with his usual confident manner. It was an habit for him to hide whatever doubt or confusion he felt. He had learned in the orphanage that it would at least repel predators would would hunt the weaker ones. He got up and took one step towards the luminous mass.

When the form of Logan had solidified from the shining materialisation, it walked to him. Scott had stopped. There was nothing to distinguish this Logan from the one who dwelled less than a hundred feet from there.

"What is the meaning of this?" Scott asked, really wanting an answer right about now.

"I am granting your wish." The shorter man said, in a voice that was not one Scott recognized.

Scott wondered what gibberish that was, until he remembered that he had sighed after his incomprehension of events and wished he understood. Probably that whoever was behind this thought he needed a graphical explanation, because the form of the man known as Logan started to morph into a much smaller shape. Only it did not shift like something he would have expected of Mystique or Morph or other shapeshifters he had met. It looked as though, the air had taken the shape of Logan and was simply attempting to assume a new shape.

Finally, the shape stood solid before him and he saw that it was that of a woman who looked very thin and probably young. With hair gleaming like the palest of blue summer skies and eyes of a curiously dark blue shade. She did look weak, or tired. And it was as if he saw her form blink for the briefest of instants. She noticed this, and looked as if she was in a hurry to leave.

"I am going to be direct. You wished for a revelation. Well, due to a certain conjecture I have to make your wishes come true." She seemed really annoyed at having to give him this piece of information. Scott just looked surprised.

"You have been wishing, first, that Logan would change his mind. So I elicited to conjure a Logan who would make this happen. Then you wished for him to be more cooperative. To grant your wish, I had to change into Logan and do it myself. The alternative was not possible." She explained this as if she was explaining the working of a simple machine to a simpleton. Scott was more than a bit angry at being duped.

"But what of Logan?" he demanded. "What have you done with him?"

"Nothing, you can keep him, when he comes back of course, he must be in British Columbia by now. Last I checked that was where he was intending to go."

"British Columbia? Where? Why?" he interrupted her and she waved her hand dimissively.

"If you don't know, why do you expect **me** to know." Her form blinked again, twice. And she seemed to look even more tired. She wavered forward and he made as if to catch her, expecting her to fall He had a lot of experience catching on Jean in her moment of weakness. But she caught herself in time.

"I cannot stay." and she disappeared abruptly as if she had never been there.

Scott shook his head in dismay. What a strange mutant. He was trying to take in all that she had told him, but he found that however recent the exchange had been, he could not recall exactly her words. She had teleported in and out, morphed and told him what he had done that day. All of that, right after he had expressed his desire to know the truth. She had said... She had said, he had wished to be told the truth, and she had told him things. Namely that Logan had not really come back.

But he had been here. Could that be why she had appeared as Logan first? To show him, that she had impersonated him while he was absent. That must be it. Yet she had also done it convincingly, at least convincingly enough that they had not had doubts before the danger room session. For what reason though?

She had also said that he had wished for things to be different with Logan, so she had made it so. Why would she do that? Scott was even more puzzled. Why would a seemingly powerful mutant play a prank like this. Either she was a friend or she was a foe. And he could not situate her on this scale.

Another odd thing, she had told him Logan was somewhere in Canada. How did she know? Unless it was a lie, and then, why would she lie. He felt however that she had told the truth about the canadian element. And he was not far from admitting that he should give her the benefit of the doubt seeing as how no negative action had stemmed from her presence. After all, at the end of the apparition, she looked as though she was in sore need of help, and in no position to threathen anyone. To tell the truth he far preferred the way she had of being Logan than the original. He would not alert his teammates yet, but he would be on the lookout. 

* * *

Scott kept thinking about the small mutant girl. He could not help but worry. A few hours had passed and she had not come back. He almost wished she would. A small young thing like her, it was bound to awaken his paternal instinct. She had looked the worse for wear.

He went downstairs to make himself a sandwich. He encountered Jean on the way and he wondered whether to tell her about that encounter, but he decided against it when he realised how thin the story was. Besides, it made him look silly, and if there was a thing he did not like, it was sillyness. The grown man in him knew it was stupid, but another younger part of him kept him from telling Jean.

He ate with Jean, trying very hard to stop thinking about it because her powers notwithstanding, thinking he was not being honest with her made him feel bad about himself. Still, they had had too little time together these days and he wanted to get as much as he could.

It was when he was sighing inwardly, that he understood what the girl had said. At that moment, he had been wishing that he could be alone with Jean more often. It hit him, how often he had been wishing lately. After that he realised that was the exact words the stranger had used. She said he had wished for the troublemaker to come back, so she had brought him back, in a way. Then he had wished for Logan to be more cooperative, and she had shown him cooperation. She had even indicated that she had been doing it herself. She had been fighting with him.   
  
All because he had _wished_.

He kissed Jean with enthusiasm. She looked at him, half shocked.

"You've given me a great idea!" he said, before he dumped the dishes in the dishwasher and ran back to his room.

* * *

Ah, Ah, Scott thought. So far the foreign creature had done all that he had required of her. That meant likely that she would continue doing so. He was the cautious one, of course, of all the X-men, he was the cautious, reliable Cyclops. Tonight, he was going to take a chance and maybe get something back for having been duped the best part of the week.

"I _wish_ the girl who came to see me today would reappear." he pronounced aloud, hoping to validate his theory.

Then, the girl reappeared just like she had disappeared last time but less dramatically. In the wink of an eye, she was there. Simply, as if she had been standing there for hours. He walked towards her, and as he got near her, he could smell a scent about her. A familliar smell he could not quite replace. He would think about it later. He had the girl to attend to.

He decided not to let her start the verbal exchange. She had lead before, and it had not helped him a lot.

"So," he asked "You granted my wishes?" he asked, the interrogative clear in his sentence.

"Yes" she replied. She seemed to understand his tactic and also seemed to refuse buying into it, because she did not volunteer anymore than the meager answer.

"You will grant other wishes?" the leader asked of her.

"Yes." she replied, after a slight pause.

"What happened earlier?" he verbally prodded her so she would satisfy his eagerness to know more about the situation.

"I was tired, shapeshifting is not one of my best talents." She looked at his old fashioned bed in a cross way. He had no idea why she would do that but it seemed insignificant. He preferred to remember what he wanted of her. He was not sure exactly what it was, but he would start testing her with something easy, He just didnt have a good imagination for that kind of thing.

"Well, I _wish_ you would pull a prank on Bobby for me. Revenge will be sweet."

She rolled her eyes in exasperation, "Why me? Why can't Puck be around when you need him."

* * *

She had tried to pry exactly what kind of prank the man had wanted from her, but he would only tell her to come up with something. She could really see why the Logan man would think of him in the way he did. She tried very hard to remind herself the third race did not have emotions, but at this point she felt like she had discovered what the word peeved meant.

So she had to avenge the _imperious leader_. She had to find a way to play a trick, of all things to be asked for, a trick, on another X-man. Scott Summers had named him Bobby. Now she knew a bit about him. Scott had explained his powers to her. She was not about to tell him she knew already a bit about him through Logan. What went on then concerned only him.

But in the meantime, she would have to outprank the Iceman. Hmm... Ice, water...

The pale fay believed she had a plan.

* * *

When he heard a loud scream, Scott had no idea that it was the girl's work. When he rushed in the general direction of the noise, he heard a string of expletives the like of which he had never heard coming from anyone save Sabertooth. After the first cuss words, he found out where they were coming from because Ororo, Jube, Hank and Betsy had come as well. Storm was knocking on Bobby's door. She was wearing a subtle expression of worry on her regal face. Others came to see what the commotion was about.

"Bobby, are you all right?" she inquired, poised to intervene should the answer be no. Everyone heard an undistinct grumble. Then silence for a while. The door opened, revealing Iceman in all his iced glory. He really looked as though he had been tossed out of bed. Which, from the appearance of the bed, he had.

The teammates all looked a one another. Ororo looked puzzled.

"What is the matter, Robert?"she gave the troublemaker the _look_. Bobby looked embarassed. As the team members peered into his room, they noticed there was water all over his room, but the bed in which he had lain was completely 'icefied'.

"Someone threw a pool's worth of cold water on me as I slept." Iceman finally said through his teeth.

Everybody laughed. The prankster had finally been caught. Bobby reddened, he knew everyone had guessed the solidified bed had been his own doing. It had been easy to guess that woken with a start, he had turned to his ice form instinctively, thereby freezing the water instantly. Hank was actually holding his ribs, he was laughing so hard. Even Storm and Betsy could not restrain vivid laughter and Jubilee was wiping tears from her eyes.

Iceman went back inside his room and slammed the door. He only came out a half an hour later, with dripping wet bed sheets and headed to the laundry room in murderous silence.

* * *

Scott could hardly believe it. He had been holding back the laughter, but he had laughed in silence to himself. Bobby had been awaken with the shock of cold water splashed on him, and had iced his own bed making sure he would not be able to spend his morning in bed. **That** was funny. He had not had such a good time since... he could not remember when.

Truly that little girl was better to have on one's side. Bobby himself would have never found a better suited prank. To think, he, Scott Summers, had instigated the whole thing; irony was hilarious. It was a good thing he had managed to hold back an uproar of gleeful laughter back there. His 'stick in the mud' image would not have survived.

* * *

The small fay wiped her hands. That had worked as planned. Unfortunately, while the mortals had thought the interlude great entertainment, it held no such amusement for her. She certainly did not enjoy being used for meaningless labour. If only she could put an end to the wishing. The last thing she wanted to happen was for Scott to enjoy himself too much. There was no telling then when he would release her. If all his wishes were like the ones he had done so far, she was in for a long life of servitude.

She simply had to find a way to get the ring away from him.While she kept thinking about loopholes, she felt the summons of a wish. It was impossible for her to ignore it. So she followed the tug, each inch she came closer easing the intolerable twisting of her magical essence.

It took her only fractions of seconds to bring herself to Scott's room. Time was meaningless to her and her kind, but that ran both ways. Centuries could seem to be no longer than a short while, the life span of an ephemera. On the other hand, nanoseconds could be longer than an eternity of suffering.

She was there soon enough to hear and see the leader of the X-men utter the end of his wish.

"...that everything be perfect to have the most romantic evening with Jean." he said. He gazed at her. This time, she had not merely appeared before him, standing on her two feet. She was floating. Not like Rogue, but as if there was simply no gravity to drag her down. It was unnerving, even if he had seen much stranger things in his dignified career.

"Well, at least this wish will not be too hard to realise." she said. "What exactly do you want?" she asked him. Scott looked at her as if she had sprouted horns. He looked as though he had never expected there was more to a romantic moment than than met the.... er.... eye. When all he managed to do was stand there gawking at her she sighed.

"I should have known this would not be simple." She hovered down to her feet and sat on his chair. "I hate to do this, but according to rumour, you would start with what the lady likes. "So, dummy, what does she like?" A notepad and golden hearts covered pen appeared in her hand. "Any idea of just what the evening should be like? hmmm...?" She looked a him in the eyes. "Maybe you should tell me, in not too many details, what you are trying to achieve with this? Obviously, it is not simply to please her or you would have a better idea of how to go about that." She tapped the pen against her notepad.

"Well, I have been thinking about it for some time now, and it simply never was the right moment. Hopefully, with your help, the moment will be perfect. Tonight, that is... huh..." The man looked positively embarassed. She could not see his telltale mortal eyes, but the rest of his face had a slight blush to it. She was about to tell him not to disclose any sexual details with her when he leaned forward and whispered in her ear the answer to her question.

"I see. After all these years, anyone would think you had gotten to know her enough to tell me what I should prepare. Not to worry though," she sighed "I will arrange the proper setting. Just make sure you get to the gazebo on time"

"Wait! Jean is a telepath. I wish for you to make sure she can't even accidentally find out about my intentions."

"At last, a wish I will relish in making come true." She made a flowing gesture and Scott disappeared.

* * *

Scott fumed inwardly. That is as much as a frog could fume. @"/$%?&* the little witch. She had changed him into an amphibious creature. And she had left him in his room. His skin started itching. He blinked. There must be water somewhere.

He thought of the bathroom and hopped there. Then he thought about the washstand's sink, but it was too high for him. The bath would be just about right, but there was no way for him to open the tap with his tiny hands now. He surveyed the bathroom at a glance. Oh no!

The frog version of Cyclops, frowned but then winced as he felt his skin prick from dryness. He waited as long as frogly possible, but he could not take the awful itch. He then hopped onto the toilet seat and willed himself to close his eyes and dived in. The water immediately soothed his skin and he swam in the small makeshift pond.

What he could not fathom was how she had done this. It was obvious Jean would not be able to pick up on a frog's thoughts, although it seemed rather extreme. Other ways seemed easier and much more dignified. Maybe the wishing business was not so harmless after all.

* * *

  


Jean blinked. When she reopened her eyes, she was standing in a totally different place. She was in a clearing surrounded by century old trees. In the middle of the clearing stood very delicate twig chairs and a table. The twined twigs were so intricate and rounded, with small leaves springing from the branches like jewels on a king's furniture. Fireflies were dancing together illuminating the clearing. She could hear, not far from here, the sound of a babbling brook flowing away from a small pond.

This was very strange, but she did not perceive any ill intent anywhere near. In fact she couldnt perceive a single human thought. When she chanced to look down at herself, she saw that she was no longer wearing her usual pants and sweater, but instead she was clothed in a magnificent gown made of the silkiest, lightest fabric she had ever seen. Its blue colour shimmered as dark as the bottom of the ocean and as light as the palest seafoam. When she got closer, the table and the chairs blossomed. She could not refrain a gasp of wonder. And then the fireflies gathered together and landed on the table concentrating their light. On the middle of the table, sat a rather cute frog.

The frog spoke with a manly voice. "Kiss me." as if it had every right to expect to be obeyed and had just figured out what role he played in this.

Jean laughed as she recognised well the mood of the small creature. She leaned forward and took him in her hand, bringing him to her mouth and giving him a chaste kiss on his head. Gradually she felt arms surround her and soon Scott had taken back his true shape and was enlacing her. He too was dressed most fantastically and Jean giggled.

"My prince, you are just as good looking as you were as a frog." she sobered up when she saw that Scott was not laughing heartily and kissed him again, on the lips this time. That had him smiling again.

The proud leader of the X-men dropped on his knee in front of the woman he loved. "Jean, I know it is hard to do, but believe me when I tell you this, this is not a dream." He smiled tentatively, sure enough of himself to ask her, but doubtful as all men are when asking this particular question to the woman who held their hearts. "Jean, will you marry me?"

"Yes, Scott, I will marry you." Jean replied with a subtle blush creeping on her face. When she felt the subtle thought of relief about him at her having accepted his proposal, she felt touched by his love and kissed him again. When they parted, Scott looked at the table and saw a photo camera had appeared.

"This is a sign, Jean!" he smiled at his fiancée. He aimed the camera and took a snapshot. Jean laughed and mentally wrestled the camera out of his hands, and shot him back. Then, they both worked hard on finding a way to set the camera to take a picture of them both. They did not notice a small shape slipping away.

* * *

  


Scott was amazed at how good the pictures of Jean were, thanks to the fireflies. There was somethin magic about the whole setting. Reasonably, it had been too dark for good pictures, but instead you could see a radiant Jean in a fairytale. Ah well, it was a lucky strike.

One thing was for sure though, he loved the picture and he wanted it framed as soon as possible. So he took the frame off the wall, not noticing that as he did it a small object fell to the floor. All he had on his mind was framing the picture of the woman who had just agreed to become his wife and looked like a princess. Then as he hung back the frame, a glitter caught his eye. A ring., with a flashy stone. That was certainly not Jean's. He picked it up. It had a strange design, so the practical X-men leader decided it must be Ororo's. He put it in his pocket. He would give it to Ororo later.    
  
When Ororo turned out to be away for the weekend, he decided to put it on her nightstand, but thought better of it. If Ororo did not come back soon, the trinket could misplaced when someone came in her room or even stolen. He hated to think not everyone in the school had the same scrupules as him, but it was a school and a public place and though the personal rooms were not, well, thefts still happened, unfortunately. So he put it in the little box Storm had shown him where he knew she kept her jewelry hidden and placed the ring in it. There, at least it would not attract undue attention.

* * *

-=+=+=>> The End of Chapter 2 =+=+=-

P. S. Write me reviews, I love reading them. Also, I've had to work hard at this chapter, and I'm still not sure what should happen to whom. Feel free to input no matter how small or farfetched. Cheerio!

  
  



	3. Storm's Sentiment

Storm's Sentiment 

-=+=+=>> Wishing Well =+=+=-

Chapter 3: Storm's Sentiment

* * *

I'd like to say to the people who have read this story and were (maybe) waiting impatiently for the third installment that I am sorry it took so long, and that the rumours of my untimely demise were gravely exagerated. ;-) In fact, let it be known I fully intend to add a fourth, fifth and sixth chapter to this story and that they are more or less plotted already, so all that's left is for me to find time and do it. Thanks for reading, it wouldn't be the same without you. 

Disclaimer: I'm the owner of the X-men. Seriously now, I don't own them, and if I don't no one should. Nonetheless, the latest news is that a big business called Marvel owns them. If they ask, I just temporarily borrowed them. That being said, "Faye" and the storyline/plot is mine. 

This chapter gets a _Reader's Discretion Advised_ for sillyness and deglamourisation of some of the X-males. 

* * *

Scott and Jean had gone on a trip together. Remy, recently back from some excursion, had snickered at the idea and called it the honeymoon rehearsal. It had made her smile. Logan had not come back and she was in charge in the meantime. Truly she had accepted to be a leader only because others had stressed she was the best for the task. If not for that, she would not want the responsibility. She was not like Scott who relished shouldering the burden of others. She would do it out of duty. She loved them all, but sometimes she would rather not have to behave like their mother. 

In her heart, she did not feel like an old woman, so why they treated her that way was beyond her. She knew that she intimidated a lot of people, mutants included. Her powers touched the supernatural and were not quite easily understood. Yet the X-men were her people now, her family and they treated her as if she was either too old to be a friend or too young to be on equal status. They knew her strenghts and her vulnerabilities and were in awe of both. 

She let herself fall back on her bed and let out a laugh she was quite sure no one would have expected to come from her mouth. Maybe they did not know her as well as they thought they did. She had always carried out her obligations but that was because she had never felt there was a real choice. She missed having fun and letting go as much as her powers would let her. 

* * *

A fairy sat on the roof and entertained wicked thoughts about Scott Summers and Logan. Though she was innocent of any mischief, Jean Grey soon to be Jean Summers was included in the pack. She felt trapped by Logan's strategem of hiding the ring. At long last she had been free of both him and Scott, but she was getting nervous about the woman whose jewel box now contained the cursed ring. 

At least this mansion was a nice place for her to 'inhabit'. It did not physically matter whether she had a roof on her head or not, but she preferred beauty in accomodations. And at least, she did not have to do anything truly repellent so far. But of course everytime she had to use her essence to satisfy a demand, the servitude to the ring chafed more. It had always been the same but she was increasingly unable to see it differently than slavery. 

The fact that her kin had given up on her long ago also rankled. She had not despaired even then, but it was difficult to hope now that humankind had evolved the way it had. 

* * *

Watering plants had always been a soothing way to keep her temper. Her collection comprised beautiful orchids, prosperous ferns, potted palms, cacti. Remy sometimes teased her about what he called her greenhouse. And called her Stormy after the teasing, and he knew she hated that. She could forgive him for that, though she would never admit it. Remy, was the only one who sometimes treated her as a friend. 

Even that was limited. Sometimes she felt alienated from the group and it seemed to her, the plants had more understanding of her than all her teammates put together. She always felt better, more _normal_, whatever that might be, after she cared for them. They would let her care for them without assuming anything, unlike the X-men or the Morlocks. Of course, that was because they were _just plants_. It warmed her heart nonetheless. 

She had a little violet plant in a pot. Now violets were not quite her favourite flowers. No one went to the florist to buy a bouquet full of violets of all flowers. They were so common and small. If you had a patch of grass somewhere you would get violets. Kitty had given the pot to her not so long ago as a visiting gift. She had thought the gift was kind but uninspired, but little by little, the violet had grown on her. It required a minimum of fussing and bravely blossomed throughout the year. Though she enjoyed her more complicated plants, it was her little violet that touched her heart most often. 

She longed for simplicity too. Jean and Scott were going to get married, and she wished she could have a life like theirs. They were special just like her, but they also had a private life of their own, just like normal, simple people. 

But most of all she _wished_ for someone _special_ to connect to just as she felt her little violet trying to reach out to her heart. She _wished_ for someone to talk to right now. 

* * *

The fay creature had no choice and particularly she had no time for adjusting the scene. She popped in the room and appeared to the woman known as Storm. Fortunately the composed woman was not frightened out of her wits when she saw a strange looking female where there was none a second before. That she could see, calm did not preclude curiousity in Ororo Munro. 

"Who are you?" she immediately asked.   
  
Children of Oberon never knew just how they appeared to humans, especially not when they had not been able to concentrate on making the physical perception of their magical selves. But at the very least she had a good idea she had not appeared as a human would. And the woman asked... So she told her her true name. 

"I am Mélusine." she replied. "It is in my power to make wishes come true." But then something strange happened that surprised the small fairy. Storm did not greedily jump at the chance to ask for more wishes. But instead she commiserated. 

"It must be a difficult power to control." Ororo said with a wistful look. 

"You sound as though you know what you are talking about." Mélusine answered quickly, knowing full well that the African Goddess knew that the greater the power the greater the responsibility, but wanting to grant her wish. Wishes did not always required magic to come true. 

"I do." The white-haired woman sighed. Mélusine sighed in turn like someone who knows she is about to do something she might regret. 

"You could always make a wish." She had the feeling this was a bad idea. The opening, at best, made her vulnerable in a way the mortal woman before her could not understand. At worst, who knew... That was her curse. 

"But, I have nothing to wish for. I live a meaningful life, embarking on perilous missions with people who are as dear to me as family to save the whole of humanity." Storm was adamant and looked proud. Mélusine looked at her strangely. 

"It looks as though you don't have fun very often." The little fairy offered a tentative smile, but Storm looked shocked that someone could have known so quickly. "Maybe you should fix that before trying to do something else, it might just be the solution to your situation." 

"How could I? No one here looks at me twice outside of the missions." The regal woman looked somewhat dejected. She looked away, ashamed at her own admission. In her own eyes, the second leader of the X-men had neither of the qualities that made the men chase after Rogue, Jean or Betty. Jean never even had to work at it to have men fighting over her, whereas she was ignored. The chidlike creature seemed to understand her thoughts because she said, 

"Hmm, hmm, I see, you wish the opposite sex would react to you. It truly is not as uncommon as it sounds you know." She added gently. "I can make them all love you if that's what you want. It would be, ah, _a piece of cake_" A glimmer of amusement at the folly of mortals shone in her eyes. "But I think I don't have to do that, you could make them fall in love on your own." She paused, "But it would be easier if you tried to have fun, and at least, if _that_ did not work, you would have a good time." 

"_Fun_? I don't know... I don't think I remember." Ororo seemed surprised to hear herself admitting she had had no fun in a long while. It was so easy for the others. They seemed to derive _fun_ from whatever activity they were engaging at the time. She even had to wonder if she had ever known what fun was. She certainly could not recall the _woohoo _kind of fun her partners seemed to enjoy so freely. "They all have friends, at least, they all at least have a special friend. I do not." The ageless woman spoke as if startled by her own revelation. 

"You have er... the one with the red eyes. You do find him endearing." 

"That is true, but Remy is secretive and most of the time he is absorbed with his own problems or his tentative lovelife. Not that I can blame him. Also, he does not see me as a woman, he keeps seeing the little pickpocket I was." She was trying very hard not to lose her cool dignity but the weather outside had gone from a sunny spring day to a lackluster cloudy sky. 

Mélusine could feel the unintentional working of the weather in a way that was alien to her kind. Her ability was truly wondrous, and fortunate. She would be able to understand what the other woman left unsaid from the magical reading of the weather surrounding them. Right now, any child of Oberon would have been able to detect a massive wave of melancholy. And this would not do the mortal any good. 

"Do not despair. Very soon you will have an opportunity and I think if you want it, you can get reacquainted with fun." 

The woman opened her mouth to ask clarifications, but the fairy raised her hand and silenced her with laughing eyes. "Shhhhh... ! Just wait and see." Before the sound of her words muted she had dissolved as if into ether. 

That left only a sad, perplexed Storm into her room, trying not to succomb to self-pity. 

* * *

Being a fairy godmother was not given to every fairy. Mélusine knew the last one had retired a long time ago and now it just was an outdated custom. Most of her kind would never have accepted anyway, either dismissing it as unsignificant or tedious. But she thought it was a special talent. One she would have dismissed a thousand years ago, but things had changed, and this was after all temporary. It was not as if she had truly been asked at the mortal's birth. 

She had her _geas_ to think of, but it would be easily circumscribed in this matter. Careful planning would ensure what she had in mind was not interference. She just had to revolve around what the woman had wished. She had wished for someone like her violet to be her friend. This could work after all.   
  


* * *

Storm felt the need to flee the house and it was terribly easy for her to do so. It had been harder to fight with her emotions and keep the weather contained to a tame rain drizzle. But that's what she did, whatever was needed for the comfort of others. She really hated to feel this way. Why could she not feel good about it anymore? It was what everyone said made life meaningful that she had devoted her existence to. Nevertheless, she felt as though if she disappeared tomorrow her friends would only notice the absence of wind. 

The girl had said she should try to have fun, but the prospect was frightening. To have fun, she would have to let go, at least partially, of the careful control she held over her emotions. She remembered what happened the last time she had failed to control her temper. Her power was as destructive as it could be helpful. Even controlled, she mused, it destroys. That which is first destroyed by my control is my personality. 

There must be a way. Even Rogue found a way to remain herself while minimising the side-effects of her terrible power. 

* * *

During this time, a small portion of the world's magic was very busy trying to devise ways to help a special person. She did not really want to meddle in romantic affairs unless there was no choice. For one thing, romancing mortals was complex and could turn out very differently from what had been intended in the first place. Also, it seemed to her, the woman was not quite ready. It was impossible for someone unable to have fun to fall in love. Amorous feelings required a loss of control far deeper than enjoying the moment. 

She needed a friend, a human type, mutant, X-Men friend. One who would relate to her, who would push her to giggle, and one who would challenge the others' view of their second in command. Besides, she had almost wished for her violet to be human. It could perhaps work. 

_Thy sight pleases, little plant_

_Be not thyself but a mutant_

_As true a friend thou shall be_

_And to bring merriment to see._

This had to be a good idea.   


* * *

When Ororo could not find her lovely potted violet, she had waited patiently for Bobby's prank to reveal itself. One day, Two days, she thought he must have something elaborate in mind. After five days she made an unseen Mélusine proud when she almost raised a stink about what had become of the plant. Hank protested politely, Remy looked insulted and skulked away, Rogue lilted a very southernly mahgawd, Logan said nothing, Bishop promised he would keep an eye open on his next round and Bobby, for the first time she had known him, looked her straight in the eye with all due innocence and swore he did not do it this time. No one had seen the missing plant. 

A week later, everyone but Storm, had forgotten about the incident. So no one connected the appearance of a slender young mutant on the doorstep of the mansion with the disappeared violet. Bishop had opened the door and her appearance immediately elicited a response from him. Rather than barking questions at her as he would of any strangers, he let her in and invited her to sit down. Soon the whole team was coming to meet the young woman who presented herself as Violada Mendoza-Montoya. 

She was a medium height woman, with dark purple hair that could pass as black unless you looked at it very closely. She had the magnolia skin tone that had been associated with the classical spanish beauties by envious european ladies. And she had dark green eyes. Soon the whole team, Storm, Hank, and Bishop included, was under the charm of the spanish lady. They even forgot to wonder why she had come. 

She graciously volunteered the information. She too was a mutant. Before they could all ask what her special power was. She disclosed that she had a way with odours, but not _just_ body odour. She laughed in a tone that was earthy and generous. She lowered her head in playful mock shyness and admitted she could just about charm the socks off anyone. Or put them all to sleep, she added in a thoughtful tone. 

Not so oddly, given her charming personality and power of persuation, she was almost immediately accepted in the mansion and the first impression she had made had been a proof of her powers. Without much delay she was put to the test in the danger room where more dangerous lethal skills were demonstrated. When she made thirthy angry Friends of Humanity members fall to the floor gagging, Bishop, who was monitoring the exercise, was utterly convinced. 

* * *

Storm was another matter though. She was always good to people, even people she might be disinclined to immediately befriend. Violada was no exception. But Ororo Munroe was also a bit afraid that Violada projected with her power the way she wanted others to respond to her, that she influenced her natural reaction. What she really wanted was a good reason to trust her. As for befriending her, that was a whole another matter which she was not accustomed to. 

Ororo had an exotic fern, very rare fern. Of course she had been unable to resist pulling just a tiny shoot from the Savage Land in memory of events she could not otherwise remember without discomfort. She had been very careful with it, be it on board the jet, or in the mansion where she had herself quarantined the tiny plant. She was aware it was a risk and that it might have been ecologically unsafe, but she so rarely acted without afterthought, that sometimes she was ready to go to extreme lengths to indulge a whim. 

She had nursed the plant like a baby. Like a newborn to new parents, it had puzzled her as to what was the best way to care for her latest arrival. But at last, it had thrived since and had become a luxuriant patch of green in her personal quarters. It had also become the secret embodiement of her unruly inner self. 

Of late though, it had not prospered as she had come to expect. The plant had slowed its growth, but that was at first. Then, eventually, it had stopped growing at all. Now the leaves were drying and turning brown as though the fern was simply drying up. She had given it water more often, she had checked for parasites. Nothing had worked. It was wiltering before her very eyes, and she was powerless to prevent it. 

She had had no one to really talk to about this matter that was so dear to her heart. But she was finally at her wit's end, and she really needed to vent her frustration before everyone suffered the inescapable consequences in the form of a tornado. Too bad there was Stanley Cup final going on and nearly everyone in the mansion was watching avidly as the New York Rangers had it out with the Vancouver Canucks.   
When she told them there was something wrong with one of her plants and she could not find out what seemed to be the mattter, no one registered the faint hint of panic in her normally calm voice. After all, Ororo was just as reliable as Scott. She would be there for them tomorrow no matter what. But the Stanley Cup might not. In fact they were not really hearing her. 

Only Violada remained uninterested by the hockey frenzy. When she got up and said she might be able to help, the white haired woman thought the pleasant newcomer might just be too bored not to jump on any distraction. She seemed to take an interest though, and immediately asked what sort of plant the patient was and Ororo immediately felt reassured, that regardless of Violada's competence, at least she would not be alone to bear witness to a vital part of her life. 

The spanish woman cooed strangely when she saw the strange fern like she would have to a baby. Storm could not prevent a mental note about the sillyness of the woman, but she could not help feel comforted by the genuine interest she noticed in the unintelligible words, when before she had wondered if Violada cared at all. Slender magnolia hands took the leaves between her fingers, and prodded the dirt in the pot. She hummed, very much like Hank did when he was hard at work on a project especially dear to his heart. 

"Is old, this plant... Older than they have where I come from." She wrinkled her forehead, deep in reminiscence. "No, I have not seen like it. But I know what is wrong." She smiled widely. 

Gone was the mask of icy calm on Storm's face, she was hanging to the words of the earthy woman before her. Eagerness poured through every pore of her skin. "What is the matter? Tell me!". 

"Is grown up," Violada pointed to the pot, "the air and the earth, is not good no more." She paused as if searching for words. Storm assumed she was trying to find an english equivalent to a spanish word. But the prim woman took her hand and hauled her outside of the room, away from the fern and all the way down to the door. Then she led outside and foraged places, still holding on to a confused goddess's hand. 

"I look for the thing your plant needs." the smaller woman explained. After a while, not finding it and in seeming frustration, she moved to the patio, and her face brightened. She let go of Ororo's hand and stood in front of a small charcoal grill. "This! Your plant needs this." and she pointed to the grill. 

"My plant needs barbecue?" The look on the woman known as serenity personified was priceless. 

"No, no, it needs what there is in the small black ... rocks." And she nodded and smiled eagerly to carry her point across to the other woman, waiting for a glimmer of understanding to flash in her eyes. 

"Charcoal..." Storm mused, "charcoal, black, fuel... " obviously, something clicked in her mind. "Carbon! That's it. Everything is bigger and more primitive in Savage Land. Plants also are. Ferns are not just moss there, they need more fuel. The air does not contain enough carbon dioxide, it should get more carbon." She smiled and grabbed new charcoil from the bag. "Come with me, Violada, you are a lifesaver." 

With a little help from Hank, an adequate apparatus was assembled and put to use on Ororo's savage fern. And she felt better than she had since she had lost her little potted violet. 

* * *

Eventually, the fern survived and thrived once more. As it prospered so did a friendship between the two opposite women. Ororo, stern and pondered, and Violada, prim and spontaneous found a middle ground and kept meeting there. In a few days only, Violada had talked, and listened, more to the dignified X-Men than most of her teammates had. Ororo had confided things to the easy-mannered girl that she had never even considered worth coining as confidence matter. She had surprised herself in doing so, and it kept surprising her how good it was to talk with someone and say nothing earth shattering. 

One of the big conversation topics with Vi, (as she had come to be nicknamed to the mansion's inhabitants) not too suprisingly, was the opposite sex. With fine specimen in the mansion, it was bound to spur the coquettish spaniard. Ororo was secretly embarassed the first times Vi breached the topic. Not because she was unaccustomed to such talk, but because she had nothing recent to speak of. Yet as she noticed the attitude of her friend, she began to feel more heartened. The purple haired beauty had a way to point out men's finer points, and their most obvious flaws that forced Storm to reevaluate her teammates. 

All that talk of men and the relationships, real or imagined, that could arise, awakened a longing Storm had felt growing inside her since Scott and Jean had become engaged. Vi was a lot of fun, but it was not the same as when you know the supposedly stronger sex desired you as a woman. And Vi, despite her apparent playfullness, seemed little enclined to the matters of the heart beyond the shameless flirting she had going on with the X-males. Storm realised that the younger woman was not even serious about pursuing any of them, but she could not help feel envious of the ease with which she twisted them around her little finger. And truth be told, Storm was almost certain, most of the time, Vi was not using any of her supernatural power 

When the topic veered to women's favourite nightmare again, Ororo finally confided in Vi. She told her she wished she had a better approach to men, that she would have liked them to pay her some attention. That she longed for the tingles of love. 

* * *

Neither women could know that a small fairy was bound to hear a wish reverberated by the ring. But at long last, Mélusine had work to look forward to. She was already pleased with the strange friendship between the two women. She had seen how the team members reacted, and they looked surprised that Vi had seen something in Ororo that they had not. They were suprised at how often the two of them could be found chatting together. All in all, the fay creature thought, the positive influence of Violada had forced Ororo Munro to examine her feelings more closely and to express them. 

And now she was wishing for the dream of every fairy godmother. The woman needed a man of her own. It was a pity that she had wished men would pay attention to her though, because that would make the magic less direct, but she was certain everything would work for the best. 

Mélusine rubbed lily-of-the-valley between her fingers and wove her spell with no difficulty at all and she punctuated the work with her melodic words. 

_Every man in this mansion fine_

_Will stop seeing her with blinds_

_When Storm them eligible finds_

_And invite her for best to dine._

The Storm woman would soon be surrounded with the attentions of those men she most desired. 

* * *

When Ororo Munro woke up the morning after, she felt great. In fact she had rarely felt so good in the last few years. Every bit of her body felt in the right place, and the weather outside was positively bright. There seemed to be no special reason for it, but she was not about to question her good humour too thoroughly. By the goddess, she was wired! 

She got dressed and left all her long caftans aside, opting for a festive summer dress. She gathered her long thick hair into a french braid and even put on bright berry pink lipstick. She might not be on the verge of making _Maybelline_ proud, but this was rather finicky for her usual behaviour. She peered in her mirror, turned her face this way and that way, and for the first time in a long while, she liked the image it reflected back at her. If the men did not find her pretty, then there was something wrong with their brains. As she moved outside her room, the thought brought a smile to her face that further enhanced her beauty. 

As she walked down the stairs, she passed Hank by on his way to his room. She saluted him warmly. He must have had another of his all-nighters, so engrossed in his work that he even forgot that there were other people in the wide world. She had always liked his devotion to science and to the cure for the virus. She felt a bit concerned though, did a person not require more than to devote their life to the wellness of others? 

But she felt so light, so vibrant today that she chased the question from her mind, and entered the kitchen for breakfast. Today she was going to have a fruit salad for breakfast and no amount of reason would make her settle for the american breakfast. A determined expression settled on her face and she headed straight for the refrigerator and took one of every kind of fruit she managed to find among the leftover pizzas, and other junk food that was stacked in it. Scott and Jean had been gone for a while and it showed. Logan, Jubilee, Bobby, and Rogue were not the kind to ponder over long on what to eat. If it did not prepare in two steps, literally unthaw and open, they went for whatever restaurant delivered to the mansion. 

She even hummed as she prepared her meal. She sat down and was enjoying her delicious breakfast when Logan entered the kitchen. he was obviously back from his workout because he faintly smelled of one of those wake-up scented soaps. She was fascinated with her own attitude as the soapy smell combined with the manly odour of his washed body reached her nostrils, she found herself reacting the way many females would. It smelled even better than her salad... 

She bade him good morning. As he started to fix his own breakfast she gazed at him in his back. She had never really thought of Logan that way, but he was attractive. He was shorter than she was, but heightwise, she could practically look in the eyes of every other X-male. She was pretty tall herself. But no one could say Logan was not manly. She would enjoy going out with him, and be more than just well honed team mates. She even blushed at her own thoughts, but could not stop thinking. The mental gears of her imagination were working and soon, she wished he would think of her in the same way. 

Immediately, Logan turned, his spatula oddly raised in the air and he looked at her as if **she** was going to be his breakfast. Storm's jaw dropped and Logan smiled. She could even swear she had briefly seen a bit of tooth. He let down the spatula in the sink, stretched his arm behind his back, quickly turned off the stovetop and forgot about his eggs. In a second he was sitting across the table, looking at her and seemingly happy at the privilege. Other women might have been wary of a man looking at them like they were the last pint of Rocky Road ice cream on the face of the earth, but Ororo Munroe was a goddess and an undaunted goddess at that. 

"Logan, is something the matter?" she asked him, not too sure if this was cause for alarm. Odd things **had** been happening lately. 

"Nuthin ain't tha matter Storm, I was juss wonderin what a pretty gal like ya is doin in a place like this." 

Storm was vaguely aware that this was a way males often had of initiating conversation with an attractive female, but strangely, she had thought the X-men never had to resort to it. Especially not Logan, women of all ages were pouring themselves all over him anytime he deigned to notice their existence. And to ask her that question, was definitely weird. 

"I too defend the right of mutants to co-exist peacefully with humans." She replied with her usual calm because she very well knew her purpose. 

"Yeah, Storm, save me, let's have dinner tonight." He looked as though he ardently wanted her to agree and if the privilege of taking her out to dinner was all that stood between him and happiness. 

Ororo looked at him as if he had sprouted horns, but the offer was just too good to pass. Had she not been wishing something like this might happen? She simply hesitated a moment but she still agreed quickly to his proposition. 

* * *

Ororo had for the first time in her life taken hours to make herself look her best. And she had to admit making the man wait had its uses, when she had finally come downstairs, Logan looking uneasy in a suit had devoured her with his eyes. Bishop had also stiffly complimented her, and Remy had said something that had made her face flush right up to the root of her hair. 

Wolverine looked at a loss for what to do at first, then proffered his extended arm for her to take. She did, and they wished everyone a good evening before leaving. Logan acted very gallantly and Storm enjoyed his courtesy very much. 

Unfortunately, civility was a bit at odds with Logan proudly taking her to his new Humvee. She could understand the man loved the make, but this one looked even more beaten down than the previous one. "Ah, well", Ororo thought, "maybe it's a collectible, precious because it had been in WW2 or some such thing." She was just going to ignore that oddity when Violada showed up. 

"I come to bid you good evening, Ororo, Logan." was all Violada said. But she needed say no more, her whole appearance was statement enough for Logan. She was dressed in a knee length skirt and a neat puffy sleeved white shirt. It made her look like a teenage girl. As strong as the spell of Ororo's beauty and of Melusine's magic was, Logan simply seemed unable to resist his deeper nature. He invited her along. 

"You wanna come along, honey?" he said, apparently oblivious to the suprise on Ororo's face. "You look like you ain't got anything fun to do tonight." 

Violada protested that she was fine, and that she was not ready to go anywhere special anyway. Apparently, she could see that Ororo was fuming under the affable face she kept in place. But Logan would not leave it alone, his protectiveness of young daughter figures resurfacing. Storm could not gracefully refuse or make a scene. So after much deliberations on Logan's part, it was decided that the three of them would drive to McDonald's and drive through, because quite frankly, as Logan pointed out, Ororo was overdressed. 

Ororo kept her cool as she was used to, but she was quite confused which emotion roiled stronger in her, humiliation, or anger. She could feel the tight leash she kept on her temper loosening and her hold on the elements strengthening. That paused her to think. Just as she did, Vi giggled coyly. 

"Logan, that is a very good trick." She was not flirting, she was just the way she always was. It seemed to come naturally to her. She was such a girly woman. 

The weather goddess shot them both a dirty look that they completely missed. But at the same time she could not be truly angry at them. Violada was not trying anything, Logan had twisted her arm into coming, and he was the one paying more attention to the young woman than to the woman he invited. And maybe she had read too much into the invitation afterall. So she bidded her time, trying very hard to act as though nothing was wrong until Logan drove them back to the mansion. 

Logan was not too sure what was wrong with Ororo, but when they were back at the mansion, she bade him goodnight, and left as though she was in a hurry. He had wanted to talk to her a bit, maybe even walk under the moonlight in the garden. Truly, she was a wondrous woman, but she acted weirdly. So after Vi left too after Storm, he found himself on his own, a bit confused. He just chalked it up to the strangeness of women. That always worked. 

* * *

The day after, Mélusine watched unbeknowst to the X-men the aftereffects of her magic. Apparently Storm had not chosen wisely. She was in a sorry mood too, if the weather was any indication. Logan could do that to a person she reckoned. But the romantic getaway should have improved the woman's spirits, not worsen it. Now she was back to tending her plants, except they would not survive her disappointment very long, given the furious pace at which she was plucking dead leaves out. 

Perhaps the spell had been wrong in the first place. Humans never were very good at handling attraction. At least that was what the little fay creature pondered until a big blue mutant wandered to Storm's door. She had seen that one before, the one called Beast. So far he had been the most reasonable of the group. So what was he doing there, obviously debating whether or not to knock on Ororo's door? 

* * *

Hank McCoy rubbed the nape of his neck. He had the weirdest prickling feeling there. Strangely his hair was standing on end and he was willing to bet he had a fierce air. Nothing seemed amiss so there was no reason to feel as spooked as he was feeling. But he could not shake the feeling. As if someone, or something was watching intently. 

He tried to chase the thoughts from his brain and thought about the reason he had come upstairs from his lab. Ororo had seemed upset this morning. He did not like to think of her unhappy. In fact, he had wanted to ask what was wrong, she was absolutely radiant the day before. Not that she was not the most beautiful of all the X-women, even on her worst days, but she had positively glowed all day. Then Logan had invited her out and he had felt a pang of jealousy. 

Hank finally turned back, he was so certain Storm would not appreciate the intrusion. And honestly, it was just him, Hank McCoy, AKA the Beast. If he talked to her, she would not see past his words of concern. And he dared not approach her directly. He readjusted his coat, certain the temperature had dropped, and returned to his lab trying to paste his normal cheery expression on his face. 

* * *

What a hoot! Mélusine thought. Leave it to humans to always look in the wrong direction when it came to love. Cousin Puck was right after all, matchmaking is the greatest fun. She forgot to worry about Mr McCoy and his reaction to her presence. 

She had the strongest feeling these two were made for one another. And of course she would give destiny a little push. If she left it to them, neither would ever come out of theirs shells. All would be well and she would have a good deed to show for herself. 

* * *

  
  


-=+=+=>> The End of Chapter 2 =+=+=-

P. S. If you liked this story, please write me a review, I love to hear from you and it keeps me writing, sometimes it even makes me write a chapter more quickly! Please remember that this is a work in progress and that the next chapter should be upcoming.


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